A former NCAA women’s basketball player and head coach, Dr. M. Dianne Murphy was already a groundbreaking NCAA athletics administrator when she arrived at Columbia in 2004.
Murphy presided over a successful University of Denver athletics program, which had transitioned from NCAA Division II to Division I and had won the men’s ice hockey national championship before coming to New York City.
The first woman in Columbia history to hold the position of director of intercollegiate athletics and physical education, Murphy provided dynamic leadership for the Lions.
Throughout her career at Columbia, she initiated numerous initiatives - from creating a student-athlete leadership program, adding varsity men’s and women’s squash, establishing the women’s leadership council, and launching the Columbia Athletics Hall of Fame.
Building relationships with the president’s office and the office of alumni and development, Murphy hired the Lions’ first-ever director of athletics development and launched the Columbia campaign for athletics: achieving excellence, a one hundred million dollar fundraising effort - the largest in the history of the athletics program.
Focused on people, places and programs, the campaign enabled Columbia to re-envision the Baker Athletics Complex by creating the Campbell Sports Center, a one-of-a-kind facility within the Ivy League. The campaign also provided funding to increase headcount and hire dynamic young coaches - some of whom would lead Columbia to multiple Ivy League and national championships.
And success in competition followed. Under her direction, Columbia won 30 Ivy League team championships in 11 different sports - more than any other athletics director - including the first-ever titles in women’s soccer, women’s indoor track and field, women’s golf and women’s tennis.
An influential athletics administrator at the national level, Murphy served on the NCAA Division I women’s Basketball committee during her tenure.
Upon her retirement, she was bestowed with many honors, including the Lifetime Achievement Award for Women’s Leadership in College Sports, induction into the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics Hall of Fame, the Tennessee Tech Athletic Alumni award and the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association Lifetime Achievement Award.
